


The Lone Pup

by JillyWinchester



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: AU: Shifters are known, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Complete, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Dynamics, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, One Big Happy Family, Pack Bonding, Pack Cuddles, Pack Dynamics, Pack Family, Pack Feels, Team, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Teambuilding, Wolf Pack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:28:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22455733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JillyWinchester/pseuds/JillyWinchester
Summary: Dr. Spencer Reid has a secret, a secret he doesn't even know he has.  Spencer's a shift.  Specifically, a wolf.  More specifically, a wolf pup.  When shifters, like Reid, don't shift, their alternate forms don't develop alongside their main ones.  Which explains why Spencer smells like a pup.It doesn't explain how no one has noticed until now.The BAU is extremely stressed over this little pup, who isn't really a pup, but their teammate.So they take care of him.-This version is the Rewritten version of A Lone Pup, please read this version, it's so much better, but if you want to here's the link https://archiveofourown.org/works/14179125?view_full_work=true -
Comments: 5
Kudos: 254





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Lone Pup](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14179125) by [JillyWinchester](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JillyWinchester/pseuds/JillyWinchester). 



Change can be good, and change can be a pain in the ass, Aaron wasn’t quite sure which one this was.

He was to pick a new team member. They only had 6, a pack of wolves, and Strauss was breathing down his neck to choose a human for the job. But none of these people were good enough. They were bland. Boring. None of them felt right by any means.

Unless you counted Dr. Spencer Reid. 

He was human, 26, smart, three PhDs, three BAs, a real genius.

The only thing that kept Hotch from hiring him was, well, his physique. The kid was 6’1’’ and only a 135 pounds. Definitely underweight. He even had to be given special privileges from the field office to even be allowed in.

But Aaron knew, deep in his gut, Dr. Reid was the best. So whatever Strauss said, Hotch scheduled to have Reid come in tomorrow for an interview.

The next day, everyone stops to stare as new kid ambles into Hotch’s office. He was tall and noticeably thin. 

“Who was that?”

“New kid, I guess,”

“He seem, different, to you?”

“Yeah, all the shifters look ruffled too,”

“So,” Hotch opened Reid’s file, trying to ignore the stench of puppy that dominated the room. “it says here your father was a wolf, but your mother was a human,”

“Yes, sir” Reid kept messing with his hands.

“-and your mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia just after you were born,” All Hotch wanted to do was shift, but he stopped himself- maybe this guy just spends a lot of time with kids. Yeah, babysits on his free time, specifically wolf pups. 

“Your father left when he realized you were human?”

“Yes, sir,” Reid stopped messing with his hands and finally rested them on his knees. Hotch had the sudden urge to hunt down this man’s father and choke him.

“Do you spend a lot of time with children, Dr. Reid?”

“No sir,” Damn. That wasn’t it, but this smell can’t be Reid, he’s human.

“Do you have much experience dealing with shifters? As you may know, this whole team is a pack, do you have any problems with that?” Maybe he knows a pack who just had a pup? Spent a lot of time with them recently, not enough to warrant ‘experience.’

“I don’t have any experience with shifters besides my father, and it won’t be any trouble at all, sir,”

Hotch closed Reid’s file and handed it to him, “Good. You start tomorrow,”

"Did you guys smell pup earlier?” asked JJ that night in the bedroom. Everyone was snuggled together in the enormous bed.

“Yeah, I thought maybe that new kid had just been hanging out with some pups,” Rossi stretched, yawning,

“Huh, I thought someone had just been walking a kid from Victim Assistance around,” Garcia snuggled herself closer to the group.

“That- was Dr. Spencer Reid,” Hotch stared at the ceiling emotionless.

“What? Not rubbed off on him?” Morgan yawned too.

“Yeah,” Hotch answered, stifling a contagious yawn. “When I interviewed him today, he smelt like a pup so much it practically hurt to not shift,”

“But I dug into his history!” Garcia sat up suddenly. “He’s listed as human everywhere!”

“He probably doesn’t even know he’s a wolf,” Emily sat up too, well, so much for snuggling. “There have been cases where pups avoid shifting because they distrust the wolves around them, or don’t have any wolves at all,”

Derek sighed. “What are we gonna do?”

“We have to help him! We’ve been hoping for a pup for a while, and I know this isn’t exactly what we wanted, but maybe this is our chance,” JJ sat up, her eyes bright. “And it’s not like we can’t have another pup later after we help him out, he’ll grow faster than a normal pup right?”

“Right, but JJ, I don’t know, what if he doesn’t want our help?” Morgan rubbed his neck.

“Then we’ll wait until he trusts us to help him,” Garcia scooted up to Morgan, stealing all of his warmth. How she could be cold in May, he would never know.

“What I’m worried about is Lykos,” Emily sighed, and her shoulders slumped, she turned on the bedside lamp. No one was going to sleep now with Reid on their minds. 

Everybody in the room stared. The pack hadn’t thought about that. Lykos was a terrible disease, like anorexia, that happened to shifters when they ignored their other form. Those who got it had thinness, fatigue, immune system failure, and, if gone untreated, eventually death.

“He was way underweight,”

“He may already have it, but we won’t let it get that far,” Rossi put his arms around Emily and Hotch, who were on either side of him. 

That far, Hotch thought. He’d be ridden with grief if he had let a pup die on his watch.


	2. Why?

For a while, Spencer thought everything was normal. He assumed shifters were just really affectionate. After all, his first real interaction with a shifter in years was the most joyful greeting he’d ever had from their tech analyst, Penelope Garcia. 

“I’m so glad you’re here! At first, I was nervous that you might have been mean,” she knelt in as if telling a secret. “But Hotch said you seemed okay, which is a huge compliment from him. Hey, do you like tea or coffee?”

The others were just as friendly. JJ, the communications liaison, was handing him food every five minutes. Hotchner, though mostly all business, insisted on teaching him how to deal with other shifters when they weren’t with him, “because you don’t have any experience with other shifters,.” Prentiss kept coaching him to stay out of fights (like he didn’t know that already, he was a 12-year-old prodigy in a public high school). Morgan, on the other hand, was trying with all his might to teach Reid hand-to-hand combat. Rossi just spent time with him, playing chess.

It was nice, Spencer felt he had found some real friends for once.

But then, when the BAU runs out of the good coffee™, he heads over to the next office to find some more and overhears the weirdest conversation in his life.

“So, that Reid kid, weird, right?”

“Totally, all the shifters react to him, treat him like a king,”

“You mean the shifters in his team, they’re really protective of him, but all the others avoid him like the plague,”

“What’s up with that?”

Spencer leaves without his coffee.

But when he thinks about it, everything gets more and more confusing. Why would they treat him differently? Him, of all people? And what’s with all the avoidance? Why would one group of shifters like him better than another? Has he been marked as some sort of territory?


	3. Hurt

*3 Months Later*

BOOM!

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! Aaron should never have let Spencer in the field. He was too small, he was only a puppy, he probably had lykos for Christ’s sake! He was still underweight, he couldn’t survive an explosion! This was all his fault!

Before he had even thought about it, Hotch had shifted and was inside the burning building, clawing through the rubble, looking for Reid. Screw protocol.

Wood. Glass. Metal. A chair. Prentiss. Prentiss?!

Emily had shifted too. She was whining for Hotch to “come here!” and he did. There Reid was, lying under a small pile of rubble, unconscious and looking as little as ever. 

Morgan, Dave, and JJ ran in, still in their human form (Guess they thought hands would be handy in this type of situation). And lifted Spencer out of the rubble. 

Luckily, the unsub was dead, and no one else was in the building when it exploded. Reid was alone with the unsub. As Hotch trotted alongside Morgan and Prentiss, looking up at the sick pup, he recounted how they got into this situation, to begin with.

The bastard has been blowing up churches and schools. When they figured out where he was going to hit next, Reid was closest, so he went in first, alone.

ALONE

That was all Hotch could think about. Reid had been alone. He had been alone his whole life. That was why the pup refused to shift. Why he probably had lykos. Puppies should never be alone.“I’m sorry, all I can tell you is that Dr. Reid is in a serious but stable condition, the surgery went well.” This intern was stubborn, but JJ could work with stubborn. She walked up to him, staring him dead in the eyes. “Serious but stable?” Her voice was quiet and fierce, forcing Dr. Hargrove to strain to listen. “That is one of my best friends in there, our teammate, and you're telling me that. His only family is his mother, and she’s all the way in Las Vegas. Don’t you dare tell me that is all you can do.” 

Dr. Hargrove studied his shoes and messed with his hands. “I’m-I’m sorry ma’am, but it’s hospital policy, once he’s awake, you can go in, but right now only family members can visit,”

“Fine.” JJ flipped her hair, then looked at him with stone cold eyes (always works). “How about some information then?”

“Ma’am, I- unless you’re family” Ugh. This was going nowhere. What would Hotch do? She thought. 

Profile

JJ wasn’t a profiler yet, but she had been training just long enough to figure out this guy.

He was wearing a “Joshua 1:9” necklace, a WWJD rubber bracelet, and a cross ring. Yeah, it didn’t take much to crack this guy.

“Aren’t we all brothers and sisters in Christ? I’ve worked with Dr. Reid for a long time. Really, we’re more like family than anything else.”

Dr. Hargrove sighed. “Alright, alright, you can go in, but only one at a time!”

JJ smiled wide. “Oh! Bless you!” He started to walk away, but she called him back. “Oh, sir, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble,”

“Not at all,” Hargrove grinned. “What is it, ma’am?”

“Sorry about all that fuss back there, you know how it is; anyway, could you tell me more about Spencer’s injuries?”

Hargrove opened Spencer’s chart and began reading. “Dr. Reid has 3 cracked ribs, multiple contusions and some internal bleeding in his liver. Dr. Clare took him into surgery to help with the bleeding, and he’s doing fine now. Dr. Clare also said she would also like to examine Dr. Reid for anorexia because he’s underweight,”

JJ’s heart fell to the floor so fast it must have crashed through the floor. She’d known Spence most likely had Lykos, the poor baby barely ate anything she gave him nowadays, but, hearing it out loud like that. Would like to examine him for anorexia. She shuddered. “Thank you, doctor,”

They took turns sitting with Reid, everyone wanted their share. Even Garcia drove down to meet him. But when he awoke- really woke up, not just whimpering in his sleep. Everyone smushed into the tiny hospital room with balloons, get well cards, and a Dalek plushie Garcia had been saving for his birthday. (Aw, what the heck, he needs this right now, she’ll find another present)

“What ‘appened?” asked Reid stifling a yawn.

“You gave us a real scare, that’s what happened kid,” Rossi was smiling, but he really did give them a scare. He wouldn’t be able to sleep until Reid was safe.

“Hey, you’re stealing my jello!”

When Dr. Clare discharged Reid, everyone came to take him home. By this time, Reid didn't think it was all that strange. They were just overprotective of him. Thought he was weak because he was human. 

“Lookin’ good, pretty boy,” Derek teased as Spencer came out of the bathroom, rid of his hospital gown. 

Reid ignored him and went to collect his stuff.

Prentiss swiftly crossed the room and picked up his bag for him. “Spencer?”

“Yeah?” He wouldn’t look her in the eyes.

“Strauss wants you to take some time off,”

“What?! No, I’m fine, I’ve been approved for the field, I’ll call her,” he went to grab his phone, but Emily grabbed his hand. 

“Reid, you’ve barely been in here for a few days-”

“Which is more than enough! I’m fine!”

“Reid,” Morgan stood and walked over to the bed where they were standing. “Doc says you’re anorexic, so Strauss wants us to help you out.”

“Yeah, she specifically say that?”  _ Damn it _ , Reid thought.  _ I’m  _ **_fine_ ** **.**

“Spencer.” Hotch must’ve heard his outburst because he came in looking more serious than ever. Even in his day clothes, he could look scary. “Your injuries are serious, the only reason Dr. Clarke is letting you go is that we promised we would make sure you took care of yourself. Going back to work is not taking care of yourself,”

“Reid,” Rossi walked in behind Hotch and stuffed his hands in his jean pockets. “We want you to come stay with us.”

Before Spencer could even be shocked, Dave trudged on. “We have a spare room you can stay in, and Strauss has agreed that we all need some time off. Think of it as a vacation,”

“I don’t want to bother you guys, you’re already going above and beyond-”

“Spence.” Prentiss squeezed his hand. “We want you to come,”


	4. The Den

Reid had never really examined when his team went home, or what cars they took. This time, they drove in 2 SUVs. Derek, Aaron, Emily, and Spencer were in one car, and JJ, Rossi, and Garcia were in the other. Because it was such a long drive back home, sometimes the cars would call each other. Spence tried to stay out of it, he was a guest and just happy to ride along, but it seemed everyone was taking turns making him feel welcome. 

“My phone says there’s some traffic up ahead, do you wanna get off the highway for a bit?”

“Anybody hungry? Dave says there’s an excellent restaurant up ahead,”

“🎶NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP, NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN🎶-Haha got ya!!- Sorry, Garcia’s idea,”

“I need gas, so the next station we need to pull over,”

“Anybody wanna go to the rest stop and stretch their legs?”

“We need some motion sickness pills, anybody else need anything?”

By the time they got home, Reid was fast asleep. Nothing could wake him, (not that they really tried, Dr. Clare had prescribed rest). So Morgan put him on his hip and carried him to the guest room.

But before they were anywhere near the bed, Spencer started to get smaller and smaller, until Derek was cradling a bundle of clothes and a newborn puppy in his arms.

After a few moments of staring at the precious bundle, JJ, Emily, Rossi, and Garcia shift and take him upstairs, where they had a den (a big box filled with blankets and pillows). 

Morgan and Hotch stay behind to get Spence some dinner. Shifting must have drained him.

“He’s so tiny, Hotch, like he was born a few hours ago,”

“I know-Hey, do you remember where Rossi put the puppy milk?”

“Uh, cupboard above the microwave,”

“Thanks,”

Hotch heated up a bottle and Morgan went upstairs, shifting on the way.

Why do they always leave their clothes behind? Aaron thought.

“Will he come live with us?” Asked Garcia at the breakfast table. She was bottle feeding Reid, looking down sweetly at him. 

“I don’t see why not,” answered JJ, sipping her coffee. “We’ll have to explain everything to him, his main concern would probably be us babying him,

“Yeah,” Garcia looked down at Spencer, a little bundle of fluff. “But everyone should be able to separate this Spencer and that one,”

Rossi put down his newspaper, why he wouldn’t go digital, Garcia would never know. “That shouldn’t be too hard, what I’m worried about is Reid shifting back in time for work,”

“Do you think he’ll have a problem?” Emily asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

“Usually, kids are allowed to open their eyes and ears, but Spencer only has a week to grow, and might not get enough time,”

“But won’t Spencer grow faster because he’s an adult in his human form?” Derek put down his coffee.

“Yeah, once he gets a little older, he’ll skyrocket, but right now Reid's just a baby, he needs some time,”

Garcia nervously scratched Spencer behind the ears, “We could get another few weeks off for parenthood,”

“What are we supposed to say about Reid?” Hotch took a few bites of his pancakes. “He’s marked as human. We’d have to bring him into the state office to get his status changed, and I don’t think anyone’s comfortable bringing a newborn into such a public place, he might get sick,”

Later that night, in the den, Spencer shifts back. He’s pretty surprised to be in a huge cardboard box, naked and surrounded by wolves covered in soft blankets and pillows.

One wolf, sleek and blonde, was staring at him with wide eyes. Suddenly, she shifted into a naked JJ. Spencer averted his eyes.

“You shifted!” She said excitedly and began to poke at the other wolves surrounding her. “Guys! He shifted, come on, Rossi, wake up,”

Soon, everyone was up, shifted, and completely naked. The cardboard box seemed a whole lot smaller when everyone in it was human.

“I don’t know about you,” said Derek, shifting uncomfortably, “But I’m a bit too big for this den right now.”

Everyone nodded in agreement and got out of the ‘den,’ fetching clothes. But Spencer still had questions. “What just happened? Last I remember, we were driving, now, now I don’t even know,”

“Spencer,” Derek said gently as he handed him his clothes “that was a week ago.”

“What?!”

“You shifted,” Hotch pulled out his phone, and pulled up a bunch of pictures of a newborn wolf pup.

“I,” Reid needed to sit down. He can’t have shifted, he wasn’t capable. “But, I’m human?”

“Reid, we sensed you were a pup the moment we met you, we just waited for you to trust us,” Prentiss rubbed his back, but he pushed her away.

“I, I can’t be a wolf, I,” Spencer ran his hands through his hair, this couldn’t be happening. “My dad left because I wasn’t a wolf, I would have shifted for him, I can’t be a wolf,” 

“Spencer,” Rossi crossed the room to stand in front of Reid. “You may not have shifted because you didn’t trust any of the wolves around you,”

“I,” Spencer decided to ignore the problem. “What’s that thing?” He asked, pointing at the den.

“It’s a den,” said Hotch. “We knew you were very young, and probably not ready to be roaming, so we made you that a little while ago.”

Spencer cleared his throat and gratefully took a pair of sweatpants from Prentiss. "What happens now?"

"Now," said Rossi, sitting on the couch. "We get your status changed, and you join the pack. We take care of you when you shift, and you decide what happens when you're human."

"Will I be a pup forever?" Spencer wasn't looking forward to being babied his whole life.

"No," Garcia answered, squeezing his shoulder. "You'll grow faster than a normal pup, soon you'll reach your normal age and be able to run with us,"


	5. Chapter 5

When Spencer awoke the next morning surrounded, this time, by humans in pajamas, it all still felt so surreal. He sat and waited for someone else to wake up, he felt awkward getting up and walking around alone in someone else’s house, even if he was “part of the pack now.”

Emily woke up first. She looked him over, no doubt profiling him. “You should move in,”

“What?”

Prentiss leaned over and started to run her hands through his hair. “You should move in. It’s normal for packs to live together, and we can take care of you better here.”

“You keep saying ‘take care of me’ like I’m helpless or something,”

“Spencer,” Emily sighed and stopped playing with his hair. “You are helpless. Not now, but when you’re in your wolf form, you haven’t even opened your eyes yet. You can’t even walk. You will soon, but remember you’re still a pup Reid, we want to take care of you, it’s instinctual,”

“I.. Okay” Spencer bowed his head. “If everyone else is okay with it, then I’ll move in.”

When everyone woke up, Emily broke the news. “Spencer’s moving in!”

Everyone simultaneously turned to Spencer, smiling. Garcia actually came up and hugged him. “We’ll pick up your stuff later tonight, but right now I think you should go to the Doctor,” said Hotch.

“The Doctor? Why? I feel fine,”

“When we change your status, they’ll want a Doctor’s note, and if you don’t have one they’ll just give you a doctor, we wanted one we trusted,” Rossi answered, stretching.

“Alright,”

After breakfast, Reid decided to sneak away to call his mom. 

“Hello?”

“Mom?”

“Spencer? Are you okay? You never call this early in the morning,” Crap. It was 5AM in Vegas

“I’m fine Mom, really, I just… I’m moving,”

“Moving? Why? You’re not leaving the FBI are you?”

“No, I.. I’m a wolf Mom,” Spencer heard nothing from the other line. “Mom?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I, um... I shifted,”

“Do you have a pack?” Wow, she didn’t seem too surprised.

“Yeah, they took care of me when I shifted,”

“Took care of you?”

“Apparently because I’ve never shifted, I’m a pup in my wolf form, but I’ll grow faster and get to my normal age soon.”

“Soon? How long?” Oh. Spencer didn’t know that. He’d left the subject of werewolves alone ever since Dad had gone.

“I.. don’t know. Soon,”

“Can I talk to your alpha? Or pack leader or whatever?” Just then, Hotch appeared behind him. Reid handed him the phone.

“Mrs. Reid?”

“Take care of my boy, I’m sure you are familiar with a mother’s rage, Mr. Hotchner, do not tempt mine,” How did she know Hotch was Reid’s alpha?

“Yes ma’am,” Hotch smiled. “My pack has been very protective of Spencer, even before he shifted. 

Hotch gave the phone back to Spencer. “Love you, Spencer,”

“Love you, Mom,”

Spencer sat in the back seat of an SUV with Hotch, Rossi, and Garcia. Everyone else was in a second SUV, Spencer wasn’t exactly sure why they all insisted on coming with him, but he didn’t mention it. 

“How do you know this Doctor?”

“I’ve known Dr. Stevens for years, she’s practically a family friend,”

Reid nodded, feeling awkward with nothing to say. Sensing this, Garcia turned on the radio.

When they got there, Spencer felt he had a bunch of bodyguards. JJ, Prentiss, and Garcia surrounded him, and Morgan, Hotch, and Rossi surrounded them. Aaron leads the whole posse upstairs to Mrs. Hannah Stevens’ office. Even in the waiting room, Reid sat in the middle, and everyone else surrounded him.

“Dr. Reid, I’m afraid you have lykos,”

“Lykos?” Reid looked around, everyone looked like their world had just crashed

“Lykos,” answered Dr. Stevens. “Occurs when a shifter ignores their other form. Along with being younger in their other form, extremely in your case, they are extremely thin, fatigued, and their immune system begins to weaken. It is a serious condition, I will prescribe you some meds to help your immune system, and you are not to go to work until I check up on you and see that you are healthy.”

She turned to Aaron. “Do you want to add him to your plan?”

“Yes, he’s one of us now. We’ll also need a note from you for the state department,” She nodded and scribbled something down on her clipboard.

The State Department was next, and Rossi called Strauss in the car.

“Strauss, Reid has Lykos, we’ll be taking a while off for pack business,”

“Lykos? That’s impossible! Reid’s human!”

“No, he’s not Strauss, how do you think he got Lykos? People kept telling him crap like that,” Rossi hung up suddenly.

“You guys don’t all have to stay with me, I don’t want to bother you, plus, Rossi you’re probably itching to go back in, I don’t want to stop you from doing what you love,” Spencer leaned up to Rossi from the back seat, trying to talk some sense into him.

Aaron sighed, pulled the car over and turned around. “Spencer, you are not a bother. You are our pack. We will fight for you, and take care of you. ” Aaron cupped his face in his hands. “ You are pack. And pack always comes first.” 

Reid felt such a swell of love and trust and safety that he didn’t know what to do. His eyes began to water, and he looked around, Garcia and Rossi were giving him the same loving look that Aaron was, and he couldn’t take it. He shifted. He didn’t know how, but he felt so safe in that car on the side of the road, he let himself be vulnerable for once in his life.

JJ, Emily, and Derek watched as the other car pulled over suddenly. Morgan pulled over too, and they all got out of the car.

“What happened?” asked JJ, but then she saw Spencer and Garcia, both in wolf form. Garcia had curled up, snuggling Reid to her.

“He didn’t think he was worthy of us staying home with him, we told him otherwise, and he shifted,” Aaron explained, looking warmly at Reid and Garcia. “He must’ve felt safe.”

Reid’s pack loved him, they took care of him, made sure she ate, and over the course of a year, they raised him. Most importantly, they made him feel safe like he belonged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter guys! Hope you liked it! Please comment and give kudos! <3


End file.
